ASHLEY MEARS
Boston University, Department of Sociology, 100 Cummington Mall, Office 265, Boston, MA 02215 Email: [email protected]
EMPLOYMENT
2015 – Present Associate Professor of Sociology, Boston University 2009 – 2015 Assistant Professor of Sociology, Boston University 2016 – Present Faculty Appointment in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Boston University 2016 (Fall) Visiting Professor, Central European University Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology and Department of Gender Studies
EDUCATION
PhD New York University, Sociology, 2009 Dissertation: “Pricing Beauty: The Production of Value in Fashion Modeling Markets” Committee: Judith Stacey (chair), Craig Calhoun, Harvey Molotch
MA New York University, Sociology, 2006 Comprehensive Exams: Sex and Gender; Race and Ethnicity
BA University of Georgia, Sociology, 2002 summa cum laude ; minor in Dramatic Arts
PUBLICATIONS
Books Very Important People: Beauty and Status in the Global Party Circuit. 2020 Princeton University Press. * Translated in Chinese by East China Normal University Press, forthcoming 2020 * Translated in Japanese by Misuzu Shobo, forthcoming 2020 * Features: The Economist, ArtReview, Choice, Forbes, Financial Times, The Spectator, Slate, Daily Beast, The New York Post, The Telegraph, The Times UK Literary Supplement, The Times (UK), Psychology Today, The BBC’s Thinking Allowed
Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model 2011 . University of California Press. Chinese by East China Normal University Press, 2018 * Translated in * Translated in Korean by Cheomnetworks, 2016 American Journal of Sociology Contemporary * Reviewed in scholarly press: , Sociology, Gender & Society, Sociological Forum * Features: The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New Republic, Slate, New York Times’ Sunday Magazine, The Sunday Times of London
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Invited Edited Volume Socio-Economic Review 2018 S pecial Issue, “Elites, Economy, and Society.” Co-edited by Bruno Cousin, Shamus Khan, and Ashley Mears. Volume 16, Issue 2.
Peer-Reviewed Articles 2019 “Des Fêtes très Exclusives. Les Promoteurs de Soirées VIP, des Intermédiaires aux Ambitions Contraries.” (“An Exclusive Night Scene: Promoters of VIP Evenings, Intermediaries with Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales Thwarted Ambitions.”) 230(5):56-75.
Khan, and Ashley Mears. “Theoretical and methodological pathways 2018 Bruno Cousin, Shamus for research on elites.” Socio-Economic Review 16(2): 225-249.
2017 Asaf Darr and Ashley Mears. “Local Knowledge, Global Networks: Scouting for Fashion Poetics Models and Football Players.” 62: 1-14. * Lead Article
2016 Ashley Mears and Catherine Connell. “The Paradoxical Value of Deviant Cases: Toward a Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society Gendered Theory of Display Work.” 41(2): 333-359.
2015 “Working for Free in the VIP: Relational Work and the Production of Consent.” American Sociological Review 80(6): 1099-1122. * Lead article * Honorable Mention, W. Richard Scott Article Award for Distinguished Scholarship of the ASA Section on Organizations Occupations Work, 2016
2015 “Girls as Elite Distinction: The Appropriation of Bodily Capital.” Special Issue on New Poetics Forms of Distinction, 53: 22–37. * Winner, Best Publication Award of the ASA Section on Body & Embodiment, 2017
Sociology Compass 2014 “Aesthetic Labor for the Sociologies of Work, Gender, and Beauty.” 8(12): 1330–1343.
2014 “Seeing Culture through the Eye of the Beholder: Four Methods in Pursuit of Taste.” Special Theory and Society Issue on Measuring Culture, 43(3-4): 291-309.
The Sociological Quarterly 2013 “Ethnography as Precarious Work.” 54(1): 20-34.
2012 Noah McClain and Ashley Mears. “Free to Those Who Can Afford It: The Everyday Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research in Culture, the Media, and Affordance of Privilege.” the Arts 40(2): 133-149. International Perspectives of Marketing Theory * Reprinted in , eds. Mark Tadajewski and Robert Cluley. London: Sage (2014).
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2012 Joanne Entwistle and Ashley Mears. “Gender on Display: Performance and Performativity in Cultural Sociology Fashion Modelling.” 6(4): 1-16.
2010 “Size Zero High-End Ethnic: Cultural Production and the Reproduction of Culture in Fashion Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research in Culture, the Media, and the Arts Modeling.” 38 (1): 21-46.
2009 Frédéric C. Godart and Ashley Mears. “How Do Cultural Producers Make Creative Decisions? Social Forces Lessons from the Catwalk.” 88(2): 671-692. * Translated in French, “Prise de décision créative en situation d’incertitude : le cas de la Sociologie et Sociétés sélection des mannequins par les maisons de mode.” 43(1): 175-199.
2008 “Discipline of the Catwalk: Gender, Power and Uncertainty in Fashion Modeling.” Ethnography 9(4): 429-456. * Lead article
2005 Ashley Mears and William Finlay. “Not Just a Paper Doll: How Models Manage Bodily Journal of Contemporary Ethnography Capital and Why They Perform Emotional Labor.” 34(3): 317-343. Sociological Odyssey: Contemporary Readings in Introductory Sociology * Reprinted in , eds. Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler. Third Edition, Wadsworth Cencage (2009).
In Progress Ashley Mears, Michel Anteby, and Patricia Ward. “Learning to Labor like a Hard-working Immigrant.” Under review.
Ashley Mears and Heather Mooney. “College Partying as a Social Field: An Ethnography of Symbolic Domination.” Under review.
Book Chapters and Commentary 2019 “Fashion and Its Gendered Agendas.” Oxford Handbook of Consumption. Editors Frederick Wherry and Ian Woodward.
Oxford Handbook on Pierre 2018 Cati Connell and Ashley Mears. “Bourdieu and the Body,” Bourdieu. Editors, Tom Medvetz, Jeff Sallaz.
“Puzzling in Sociology: On Doing and Undoing Theoretical Puzzles.” Sociological Theory 35: 2017 138-146.
2017 “The Work of Fashion Modeling in a Global Field” in Doing Sociology through Fashion. Yuhikaku Publishing, Japan.
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2017 Alexander Edmonds and Ashley Mears. “Managing body capital in fields of labor, sex, and Fat Planet health” in , E. Anderson-Fye and A. Brewis Slade (eds.) Santa Fe: SAR Press.
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and 2014 “Beauty, Race, and Power,” in Nationalism , eds. John Stone et al. Wiley-Blackwell.
The Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia 2013 “The Cool Industries,” in , ed. Vicki Smith. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Fashioning Models: Modeling as Image, Text 2013 “Made in Japan: Fashion Modeling in Tokyo,” in and Industry , eds. Joanne Entwistle and Elizabeth Wissinger. Oxford: Berg.
The Worth of Goods: 2011 “Pricing Looks: Circuits of Value in Fashion Modeling Markets,” in Valuation and Pricing in the Economy , eds. Jens Beckert and Patrik Aspers. Oxford University Press.
Book Reviews Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West, 2021 Review of by Justin Farrell. American Journal of Sociology. In production.
Capital without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent, by Brooke 2018 Review of Harrington. Contemporary Sociology 47(1):74-76.
Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery 2016 Review Essay, “Ethnography Goes Out on the Town,” of Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City by Richard E. Ocejo and Urban Nightlife: Sociological Entertaining Race, Class, and Culture in Public Space by Reuben A. Buford May. Forum 31(1): 253-257.
Dominatrix: Gender, Eroticism, and Control in the Dungeon 2013 Review of , by Danielle J. American Journal of Sociology Lindemann, 2012. 119(2): 577-79.
Women at Work: Tupperware, Passion Parties, and Beyond, 2012 Review of by L. Susan Williams Gender & Society and Michelle Bemiller, 2011. 26(6): 952- 54.
Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People are More Successful 2012 Review of , by Daniel S. Hamermesh, Contemporary Sociology 2011. 41(6): 814-15.
Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil 2012 Review of by Alexander Edmonds, E-misferica 2010. 8.2, January. The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.
Contemporary Sociology 2010 “A Reply to Earl Smith and Bonnie Berry.” 39(2): 230-32.
The Power of Looks: Social Stratification of Physical Appearance 2009 Review of by Bonnie Berry. Contemporary Sociology 38(4): 360-61.
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Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics European 2007 Review of by Roberta Sassatelli. Journal of Sociology 48(3): 490-92.
Public Writings 2020 “The Secret Economics of a VIP Party.” The Economist / 1843 Magazine, June 25.
2016 “Conversations: Ashley Mears Talks about the Ethnography of Desire” with Steve Vallas. Work in Progress Blog of the OOW Section of the ASA, May 30.
The New York Times 2014 “Who Runs the Girls?” Op-Ed for , Sunday Review. September 21.
The New York Times 2012 “Age Limits Underscore Obsession with Youth.” Op-Ed for , Room for Debate Online, September 14.
Work in Progress, 2011 “Will Work for Cool.” Guest Blog for B log of the American Sociological Association’s Organizations, Occupations and Work Section, December 13.
The New York Times 2011 “Poor Models. Seriously.” Op-Ed for , September 15.
Three Quarks Daily 2010 “How Supermodels Are Like Toxic Assets.” Guest Blog for appearing July 12. The Week Magazine *Reprinted in , August 2, 2010.
AWARDS AND HONORS
2017 University of Georgia Distinguished Alumni Prize, Department of Sociology 2017 Best Publication Award of the American Sociological Association Body & Embodiment Section 2016 Honorable Mention, W. Richard Scott Award Best Publication Award of the ASA Section on Organizations Occupations Work 2008 Rose Laub Coser Award for Best Dissertation Proposal, Eastern Sociological Society 2007 Dennis Wrong Award, Best Paper by a Graduate Student, Department of Sociology, New York University
FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS
2018 Boston University Human Resources Policy Institute Research Award with Michel Anteby (Lead PI, Questrom School of Business, BU) and Trish Ward (Sociology, BU), $4,000 2013 Research Fellow, Amsterdam Research Center for Gender and Sexuality, University of Amsterdam (Fall Term) 2012 Fellowship for Higher Education, Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation, $6,484 2011-12 Junior Faculty Fellowship, Boston University Humanities Foundation (Spring)
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2010-11 Junior Faculty Research Grant, Morris Endowment, Boston University Sociology Department, $6,500 2008 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, NYU 2007 National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, SES 0727268, $2,532 2007 University of Cambridge, Mainzer Fellowship to the Center for Gender Studies, Lent Term 2003-08 New York University Henry McCracken Fellowship for Graduate Study
INVITED TALKS
Potlatch Revisited: Rethinking Status and Economic Domination ● Université de Lausanne, Centre en études genre CEG. Lausanne, Switzerland. May 2019 ● University of Southern California, Department of Sociology Colloquium. Los Angeles, February 2019 ● University of Texas at Austin, Department of Sociology Seminar Series. Austin, March 2019 ● University of California, Sociology Department. Berkeley, March 2018
Girls in the Consolidation of Class among Elites: A Return to Ownership in the Forms of Capital ● Central European University, Department of Sociology Colloquium. Budapest, October 2015 ● University of Beograd, Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory, Serbia, June 2014 ● Princeton University, Center for the Study of Social Organization, March 2014 ● th Northwestern University, 16 Annual Chicago Ethnography Conference, Keynote Address March 2014 ● L’Ecole Des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, November 2013 ● Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, November 2013 ● University of Amsterdam, Center for Gender and Sexuality, October 2013
Status as Collective Accomplishment: Doing Display among the New Global Elite ● Emory Department of Sociology Colloquium, March 2016 ● University of Amsterdam, Dynamics of Citizenship and Culture, AISSR, October 2013 ● University of Verona, Italy, Department of Sociology, June 2013 ● MIT-Harvard Economic Sociology Seminar, MIT March 2013 ● University of Pennsylvania, Urban Ethnography Workshop, November 2012
Pricing Looks, Pricing Beauty: The Gendered Production of Value in Fashion Modeling ● Media Design University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany, October 2013 ● Furman University, South Carolina, “Book of the Year” Undergraduate Lecture, March 2013 ● King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, PA, Keynote Address for the Women’s Studies Conference, April 2012 ● University of Warwick, UK, Sociology Seminar Series, March 2012 ● University of Massachusetts Amherst, Sociology Seminar Series, March 2012 ● Columbia University, New Pathways for the Social Sciences Colloquium, February 2012 ● Northwestern University, Department of Sociology Seminar Series, November 2011
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● Harvard University, Culture and Social Analysis Workshop, “New Directions in Cultural Sociology,” September 2011 ● Stanford University, Economic Sociology workshop series, April 2011 ● Boston University Women’s Guild, “Lunch and Learn Lecture,” March 2011
Race and Value in Cultural Production: High-End Ethnic in Fashion Modeling ● Boston College, Department of Sociology Seminar Series, November 2012 ● Brandeis University, Sociology Department Spring Colloquium Series, February 2010 ● University of Mary Washington, Alpha Kappa Delta Induction Ceremony in collaboration with Women’s History Month Guest Lecture, March 2010 ● Simmons College, Alpha Kappa Delta Induction Ceremony Guest Lecture, May 2010
The London Look: The City as Cultural Production ● Yale University, Modern Britain Group, February 2012
Free to Those Who Can Afford It: The Everyday Affordance of Privilege ● Cornell University, Economic Sociology Seminar Series, September 2011 Superstar Longevity and Burnout in the Globalized Creative Industries ● Stanford University, SCANCOR Seminar Series, April 2011
PROFESSIONAL CONFERENCE PAPERS AND SESSIONS
● “Algorithmic Capital and the Uneven Pursuit of Profit,” invited presentation, Platformed Creation, Stanford University virtual conference, Oct 2020. ● “College Partying as a Social Field: An Ethnography of Symbolic Domination” (with Heather Mooney). Regular Section, “Consumers, Consumption, and Inequality,” American Sociological Association, virtual conference, August 2020. ● “Precarious Agency: Gendered Status and Risk in the Inter-Collegiate Scene” (with Heather Mooney). Section on the Sociology of Consumers and Consumption, American Sociological Association. New York, August 2019. ● “The New Sociology of Elites” panel discussion at Observatoire des élites suisses, Université de Lausanne, May 2019. ● “Friends with Benefits: VIP Club Promoters As Social Capital Entrepreneurs.” Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) Mini-Conference, “The Marketization of Everyday Life.” Lyon, France, June 2017. ● “The Reterritorialization of Financial Elites” (with David Lubin). Invited panelist at Thematic Session, “Transnational Cultures of the Elite,” Eastern Sociological Association, New York. February 2015. ● “Girls in the Consolidation of Class among Elites: Ownership and Cultural Capital.” Paper presented at “Class Cultures” Regular Session; American Sociology Association Annual Meetings. San Francisco, August 2014. ● “The Elite Potlatch: Doing Display in the Global VIP.” Paper presented at “Giving and Reciprocity” Session; XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology. Yokohama, Japan, July 2014.
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● “How the Other Half Parties: Distinction and Display among the Jet Set.” Invited Participant, Sociologies of the One Percent: Transatlantic Perspectives. Council for European Studies, D.C., March 2014. ● “Elite Space in the City: The Culture of the Global Jet Set.” Invited Participant, Regional Spotlight: Empire State of Mind: New York as a Cultural Space. American Sociological Association, New York, August 2013. ● Organizer, Thematic Session, “Beauty and Capital: The Sociology of Appearance.” American Sociological Association. New York, August 2013. ● “Elite Social Spaces: Visibility and Gendered Capitals among the Global VIP.” Paper presented at Mini-Conference on “Crisis in the City.” SASE (Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics). Milan, Italy, June 2013. ● “Studying Up: A Gendered Framework.” Invited participant, Craft of Ethnography Workshop. Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 2013. ● “A Gendered Theory of Display Work” (co-authored with Catherine Connell). Paper presented at “Gender Puzzles and Paradoxes” panel; Social Science History Association. Vancouver, November 2012. ● “Transnational Circuits in the Global Cultural Economy: The Case of Talent Scouts in Fashion.” Paper presented at “Emergence and innovation in markets and organizations” panel; International Economic Sociology Conference. Higher School of Economics. Moscow, October, 2012. ● st “Teen Dreams.” Invited Panelist, From Street to Elite: Ethnographies of 21 century Youth Conference. University of Illinois, Purdue, April 2012. ● “The Precarious Labor of Ethnography.” Invited Panelist, Thematic Session, Ethnography in the First Person. Annual Meeting, Eastern Sociological Society. New York, February 2012. ● “Privilege of the Perk: the Everyday Affordance of Class Position” (co-authored with Noah McClain). Paper presented at Theory Section Session, Annual Meeting, American Sociological Association. Las Vegas, August 2011. ● “Superstar Longevity and Burnout in the Globalized Creative Industries” (co-authored with Frédéric C. Godart). Paper presented at Mini-Conference, “Creative Industries in the Global Economy.” SASE. Madrid, Spain, June 2011. ● “Fashioning Desire: Race, Class, and Sexuality in the Field of Cultural Production.” Invited Panelist, Bringing Bourdieu to Sexual Life: A Conference on Sexuality and the Sexual Field. University of Toronto, May 2010. ● “Gender on Display: Performance and Performativity in Fashion Modelling” (co-authored with Joanne Entwistle). Paper presented at Sex and Gender Section Session, Annual Meeting, American Sociology Association. Atlanta, August 2010. ● “Careers in Long Odds: Glamorous Precarious Labor.” Paper presented at Regular Section Session, Annual Meeting, American Sociology Association, San Francisco, August 2009. ● “Pricing Looks, Pricing Gender.” Paper presented at Mini-Conference, “Price and Value in the Economy,” at SASE. Paris, France, June 2009. ● “The World of Fashion Modeling: Work, Bodies, and Images.” Invited Panelist to Thematic Session, Annual Meeting, American Sociology Association. Boston, August 2008.
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● “The Field of Fashion Modeling, or: The Gendered World Inverted.” Paper presented at the Gender Theory and Methodology Seminar at the Center for Gender Studies, University of Cambridge, UK, 2007.
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT EVENTS
● Critic in Author-Meets-Critic Book Launch Event for Beauty Diplomacy by Kemi Balogun featuring Eileen Otis, and Zine Magubane, and organized by Rhacel Parreñas and Stanford University Press, October 2020. ● Author in Author-Meets Critic Book Launch Event for Very Important People featuring Viviana Zelizer, David Grazian, and Rhacel Parreñas, organized by Julian Go and Princeton University Press, June 2020. ● “U.S. Academia.” Panelist at the March Reykjavík, for Science in Iceland, April 2017. ● “From Bullet Bras to Bra Burning: The Changing Lives of Women in the ’50s, ’60s and Beyond.” The Tannery Series Panelist at at the Peabody Essex Museum. Salem, MA, March 2014. ● “Refashioning Race, Gender, and Economy.” Panelist at MOCA, the Museum of Chinese in America, co-hosted with the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University. New York, June 2013. ● “Inside the Industry: Fashion Leaders Speak Out About the Modeling Industry’s Size-Zero Standard.” Panelist, organized by The Model Alliance and the National Eating Disorder Association, Pace University. New York, February 2013. ● Invited Debater, “Proposition: This House Believes the Pursuit of Beauty Harms Women.” The College Historical Society, Trinity College, Dublin Ireland. October 2012. ● “The Economy of Beauty.” Panelist at Soho Rep Theater, Off-Broadway post-play discussion for The Ugly One . New York, February, 2011. ● “The Death of Taste: Unpicking the Fashion Cycle.” Panelist at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. London, UK, 2006
Quoted or referenced in the press (selections) The New York Times The New Republic Bloomberg NPR The Economist * BBC * * * * * New York Magazine Cosmo Magazine China The Globe and Mail Slate.com * * *
TEACHING AND MENTORSHIP
Boston University, 2009 - present ● Gender and Sexuality I: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, Team-Taught Lecture Course (in humanities, social sciences and biology) ● Introduction to Sociology, L ecture Course ● Culture, Markets and Inequality , Graduate Student Seminar ● Sociology of Popular Culture , Lecture Course ● Sociology of Gender, Lecture Course ● Race and Ethnic Relations , Lecture Course ● Sexuality in Social Life , Lecture Course
Ashley Mears, dob 1/10/1980
Central European University, Fall 2016 ● Markets and Inequalities: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Graduate Seminar
New York University, Instructor, 2007 - 2008 ● Sociology of Race and Ethnicity ● Introduction to Sociology
PhD Supervision (Completed) ● Connor Fitzmaurice, PhD defense June 2019 ● Christina Jarymowycz, PhD defense April 2019
PhD Supervision (Ongoing) ● Dilan Eren, PhD expected 2024
PhD Committees ● Sara Snitselaar, PhD expected 2023 ● Whitney Gecker, Boston University School of Social Work and Sociology, 2020 ● Patricia Ward, Boston University, 2020 ● Rebecca Farber, Boston University, 2019 ● Taylor Cain, Boston University, 2019 ● David Schieber, University of California Los Angeles, 2019 ● Sylvia Holla, University of Amsterdam, Invited Opponent, 2018 ● Emily Bryant, Boston University, 2018 ● Alaz Kilicaslan, Boston University, 2018 ● Sarah Hosman, Boston University, 2018 ● Cara Bowman, Boston University, 2016 ● Meagan O’Leary, Boston University, 2106 ● Jill Walsh, Boston University, 2014 ● Jim McQuaid, Boston University, 2013
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
● Elected Chair, ASA Consumers and Consumption Section, 2017 ● Elected ASA Consumers and Consumption Section Council Member, 2013 – 2016 ● Elected Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) Council Member, 2014 – 2019 ● Grant Proposal Referee: National Science Foundation Sociology Program, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada ● American Sociological Review (2020 – current); Qualitative Sociology (2019 – Editorial Boards: current); Contemporary Sociology (2016 – 2019); Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (2014 – 2019) ● American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Ethnic and Journal Referee: Racial Studies, Gender & Society, Poetics, Organization Studies, Social Forces, Social Problems, Sociological Forum Sociological Theory Poetics Socio-Economic Review Work and , , , , Occupations, Journal of Gender Studies
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Professional Memberships ● NYU-LSE NYLON Culture Network, 2004-present ● Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, 2008 - present ● Eastern Sociological Society, 2008 - present ● American Sociological Association, 2004 - present Sections: Sex and Gender; Sociology of Culture; Economic Sociology; Organizations, Occupations, and Work; Consumption